Podcasts

Independent Radio on CDs, DVDs and the Internet

Suzanne Simard with David Haskell – Finding the Mother Tree

By MariaJune 8, 2021Newest Podcasts

A small bookstore in Point Reyes Station, a coastal town in West Marin, California, was the first to invite Suzanne Simard for a conversation. Three days earlier, on May 4, her book had been published. Finding the Mother Tree, Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, has already become a best-seller.
Suzanne Simard was born in the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia and grew up in an old growth forest. She was educated at the University of British Columbia and Oregon State University; and is now Professor of Forest Ecology in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry.
Over 1,000 people participated on the Zoom book release hosted by David Haskell. He is professor of biology and environmental studies at [ . . . ]

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Prof. Ilan Pappe: The Idea of Israel – A History of Power and Knowledge – TUC Archives

By MariaJune 1, 2021Newest Podcasts

The Israeli historian Ilan Pappe spoke on September 14, 2018, at the City Club of Cleveland.
Attempts were made to prevent Prof. Pappe from speaking, however the President of the Board of Directors of the City Club explained why they did not retract the invitation. She said that a forum devoted to freedom of speech will use this as an opportunity to reflect on the role the City Club plays in the community. We believe, she said, that our work requires us to listen and learn.
As the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians continues, many question the very representation of the Zionist state. Ilan Pappe, Ph.D., Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the [ . . . ]

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Is anti-Zionism anti-Semitism? Israeli historian Ilan Pappe and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis

By MariaMay 25, 2021Newest Podcasts

The question put to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe by Intelligence Squared and recorded before the most recent attack on Gaza was: is anti-Zionism anti-Semitism?
His response, recorded on March 30, 2021, is an extraordinary mini-lecture on the origins of this argument and how it is now used to prevent the critique of Israeli policies.
Ilan Pappe is an expatriate Israeli historian and socialist activist. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.
Pappé is one of Israel’s New Historians. Since the release of pertinent British and Israeli government documents in the early 1980s, they have been rewriting the history of Israel’s creation in 1948. And that includes the corresponding [ . . . ]

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Israel’s Bombing of Gaza – May 2021 / Rashida Tlaib and Sami Al-Arian

By MariaMay 18, 2021Newest Podcasts

Thanks to Amy Goodman and Chris Hedges for the moving presentations on the status of Palestinians. Democracy Now re-broadcast congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s courageous speech of May 13 on the floor of the House.
Rashida Tlaib says that she is a reminder to colleagues that Palestinians exist, that we are human and we dream. She calls for Apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to end.
She points out that currently military support of Israel is unconditional and that Israel as the largest recipient of security assistance from the US does not comply with federal laws and international human rights standards.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Presbyterian minister, author and television host of On Contact. He was a foreign correspondent and bureau chief [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)

Professor Avi Loeb: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

By MariaMay 11, 2021Newest Podcasts

In October, 2017, an object that came from outside the solar system was discovered near the sun. Harvard Professor Avi Loeb says that it is an artifact – many colleagues say it is just another comet or asteroid.
Here is part of the ongoing and escalating controversy laid out in the Big Brains podcast from the University of Chicago from May 6, 2021. The full 34 minute conversation between Paul Rand and Professor Avi Loeb is on the University of Chicago website.
Avi Loeb is a theoretical physicist who works on astrophysics and cosmology. He is former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University and directs the Black Hole Initiative. He chairs the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative [ . . . ]

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Suzanne Simard – Dispatches from The Mother Tree Project

By MariaMay 4, 2021Newest Podcasts

A report on the underground networks in the forest
Suzanne Simard is Professor of Forest Ecology in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry. In spite of her status in academia, rigorous research and love and respect from her students it took over 30 years for her ideas to break through.
Ferris Jabr writes in the New York Times Magazine: “By analyzing the DNA in root tips and tracing the movement of molecules through underground conduits, Simard has discovered that fungal threads link nearly every tree in a forest — even trees of different species. Carbon, water, nutrients, alarm signals and hormones can pass from tree to tree through these subterranean circuits…
Resources tend to flow from the oldest and biggest trees [ . . . ]

Podcast (file2): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)

Saving Redwoods in Northern California – Pomo Indian Perspective

By MariaApril 27, 2021Newest Podcasts

A call for support went out early in 2021. Logging was to begin in a coast redwood forest in Mendocino County on the Pacific ocean that many of us believed was protected since it is owned by the State of California. The State purchased almost 50,000 acres from a bankrupt logging company in 1949. The Jackson Demonstration State Forest, located between the city of Willits inland and Fort Bragg on the coast, is managed by CalFire, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Research showed quickly that CalFire, except for a short pause, never stopped logging the land of their second growth coast redwoods. But now, in the age of climate change and devastating forest fires, their timber harvest plans [ . . . ]

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Chris Hedges and Richard Wolff: American Economic Illusions

By MariaApril 20, 2021Newest Podcasts

$5 trillion allocated for COVID-19 relief and infrastructure projects Chris Hedges discusses the nearly $5 trillion being allocated by the Biden Administration for COVID-19 relief and infrastructure projects with the economist Prof. Richard Wolff on April 10, 2021.
Chris Hedges, who invited Richard Wolff on his weekly program On Contact for RT, is a journalist, author, Presbyterian minister, and visiting lecturer at Princeton University. His many books include War is a Force That Gives us Meaning and America: The Farewell Tour. Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent for print and radio, including the New York Times.
Prof. Richard Wolff is a visiting professor in the graduate program in international affairs of the New School in New York [ . . . ]

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Obit: Ramsey Clark’s Appeal for Peace – STOP the War on Iraq – Let Iraq LIVE!

By MariaApril 13, 2021Newest Podcasts

Rebroadcast in memory of Ramsey Clark
Former U.S. attorney general and longtime human rights lawyer Ramsey Clark died on April 10, 2021 at the age of 93. He served as attorney general from 1967 to 1969. After leaving office, Clark became a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy. “The world is the most dangerous place it’s ever been because of what our country has done, and is doing” he said.
I recorded him in San Francisco on October 12, 2002 – He said that when George Bush declared his war on terrorism he made the most lawless step in the history of the United States. Ramsey Clark warned of another war on Iraq – both for the poor and tortured people of [ . . . ]

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Greenland Ice Going – Gone? Examining a drill core collected during the Cold War

By MariaApril 6, 2021Newest Podcasts

The mile thick Greenland ice sheet would raise the oceans of the world by 7 meters if all of it melted. Climate change deniers say this massive ice sheet, second only to the Arctic, could never thaw completely – or at a rate that concerns us.
Examining a drill core collected during the Cold War and forgotten for almost 60 years, Andrew Christ and his Vermont Colleague Paul Bierman found evidence of plant life from less than a million years ago. They found frozen under nearly 1.4 km of ice, well-preserved fossil plants and biomolecules sourced from at least two ice-free warm periods in the past few million years.
Andrew Christ was interviewed at the end of March 2021. Thanks to [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)

Tribes from California to Australia are Fighting Wildfire with Fire

By MariaMarch 30, 2021Newest Podcasts

For over 100 years, it has been illegal for Indigenous tribes in California to practice traditional burning to prevent catastrophic wildfires. Now, the Karuk Tribe in Humboldt and Siskiyou counties is bringing fire back.
Julia Muldavin’s 11 minute film is entitled: This California Tribe Is Fighting Wildfires With Fire. Karuk spokespeople include Herman Albers, and Chook Chook Hillman, Karuk Department of Natural Resources. The film was posted on YouTube in October 2019.
Sadly the message and cultural fire practice did not spread fast enough to lessen the catastrophic impact of the 2020 record-setting California wildfire season. It burned 4 1/4 million Acres.
In an extraordinary case of symmetry that shows that cultural intentional burning is a shared practice among indigenous peoples – the [ . . . ]

Podcast (file2): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)

Restoring a Forest with Intentional Fire – Dennis Martinez

By MariaMarch 23, 2021Newest Podcasts

March 2021 Rebroadcast from the TUC Archives
 In the last ten years, from 2011 to 2020, the US had the most catastrophic fires in memory. According to the Congressional Research Service, in 2020 alone, wildfires burned 10.3 million acres, nearly 40% of these acres were in California. And climate change is only part of the explanation.
Cultural burning and intentionally set fire, as practiced by Dennis Martinez, are essential tools in managing forests, and restoring California’s fire-adapted ecosystems.
Dennis Martinez and Tribal elders have for decades called for the re-introduction of such practice. However current laws and regulations and the outsized power of the logging and insurance industries have prevented the needed change and limited the power of Native American Tribes.
This is the [ . . . ]

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Who’s Counting – Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics – TWO of TWO

By MariaMarch 16, 2021Newest Podcasts

ARCHIVE – for Women’s History Month 2021  Marilyn Waring was only 22 when she was first elected to the New Zealand Parliament. She was shocked and dismayed when she learned that all countries that are members of the UN are forced to keep their books and design their budgets under the system of National Income Accounting. This GDP system counts only cash transactions in the market and recognizes no value other than money. This means there is no value to peace and to the preservation of the environment.
This segment opens with war. Under the GDP accounting system war is the biggest growth industry of all. A segment recorded in the Philippines shows that the labor of women feeding [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)

Who’s Counting – Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics – ONE of TWO

By MariaMarch 9, 2021Newest Podcasts

ARCHIVE – for Women’s History Month 2021 Marilyn Waring’s work and intriguing life is described in a documentary film by Terre Nash. I’m bringing back the soundtrack of this film to support a debate on the unquestioned need for economic growth at all cost and on what course to take after the end of the Covid Epidemic.
At age 22 (in 1974) Marilyn Waring became the youngest member of the New Zealand Parliament. She chaired the prestigious Public Expenditures Committee and became familiar with the Gross Domestic Product system and decided to disclose its pathologies in a film, her teachings at AUT University in Auckland and really her life as a feminist economist. The film, “Who’s Counting” traces her quest [ . . . ]

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti Poet Laureate – On Poetry and City Culture

By MariaMarch 2, 2021Newest Podcasts

In Memory of Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Rebroadcast of the original 1998 recording
In October 1998 Lawrence Ferlinghetti became the first poet laureate of the city of San Francisco. Major Willie Brown said he got the idea during a visit to the city of Seoul, South Korea. He had been asked when the city Poet Laureate would be giving his annual talk. A decision had to be made very fast to create the office and, as City Librarian Regina Minudri said, picking Lawrence Ferlinghetti was a no-brainer. She introduced him as a literary legend, a voice of dissent, and an internationally acclaimed writer, artist, bookseller and publisher.
Mayor Willie Brown came to the reading and said a few words. Since he later became [ . . . ]

Podcast (file2): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)